United States, Australian, Irish and Swedish radio shows wins awards from UN

A programme on homeless American youth and a broadcast on breast cancer survivors in Ireland are among the winners of a series of radio awards presented by the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI) today.

Radio programmes from the United States, Australia, Ireland and Sweden were all honoured as part of the New York Festivals Radio Programming and Promotion Awards.

The Gold Award has gone to XM Satellite Radio, US, for The Invisible: Children Without Homes, and the Silver Award to SBS Radio, Australia, for The Stolen Generation.

The two Bronze Award winners are: RTE-Ireland, for One in Eleven, and UR, Sweden, for Breaking the Silence in Israel.

The Invisible: Children Without Homes, which was broadcast on The Bob Edwards Show, is a collage of stories on homeless youth and how they navigate their way through a social service system that has failed them. It focuses on how homeless youth are more likely to suffer from abuse, abandonment, health problems and learning disabilities than other children.

The Stolen Generation poses the question of whether one generation can atone for the deeds of another. This youth-produced programme examines how multicultural generations of Australians react to their Government’s recent apology to the Aborigines for the former state practice of removing indigenous children from their families.

The first co-winner of the Bronze Award, One in Eleven, tells stories of breast cancer survivors and how a group of women in Ireland struggle to acquire basic health care services.

Breaking the Silence in Israel, the second co-winner, questions freedom of speech in Israel and the need to search for comprehensive information on the conflict in the Middle East.

Jointly sponsored by DPI and New York Festivals, the awards were established in 1990 to honour exceptional radio programming that best reflects and exemplifies the values, aims and ideals of the UN.